Focus: HOPE program helps train new-mom counselors

10:39 PM,
Mar. 22, 2013

Toria Turner, 37, of Grosse Pointe Park, a patient care technician who assists nurses at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, is participating in the HOPE Village Initiative program to help new mothers learn the benefits of breastfeeding.

Written by

Tammy Stables Battaglia
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

At 15 and pregnant, JacDell Chance felt far from confident about giving birth and breastfeeding her baby.

"Your mentality and mind-set is not focused on the perseverance," Chance said Friday as she sat in a classroom at the Detroit nonprofit Focus: HOPE's Center for Children. "It's 'How can I put my heart back together? How can I get rid of this guilty feeling?' It makes it complicated."

But now 26, the mother of three -- who has her own catering company, Food Therapy Cuisine -- is being trained to be an advocate for low-income pregnant mothers -- help that she never had. Chance is one of 27 women ...